Comments by "Thump Er the Sweaty Fat Guy" (@SweatyFatGuy) on "The Terminal List - Top Notch Action Thriller" video.
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@SenorQuichotte I made more than $4500 a month as an E5 with more than 12 years time in service, back in 2004. He is the equivalent of a Major in the other branches, O5, and the base pay is $6112 if they come in as an O5. They can make $10,384 a month with 22 years time in service. Combat pay, jump pay, family separation, BAS, BAH, and other allowances all add up. Then you have the bonuses for signing, making it through training, and reenlistment bonuses for some jobs. For a while USAF LAN/WAN Admins were getting $60k to reenlist.
Until you hit E5 and O3 its a struggle though, not gonna lie. You barely get paid enough to do much of anything until you have 8 years and have made E5 or O3. My E5 pay was higher than O1 and O2 pay when I got out, which is very different from when I first enlisted in 1988. Back then an E9, the highest enlisted rank got paid less than an O1, the lowest commissioned officer rank. My first paycheck in 1988 was $710 for the entire month.
You'd be surprised to see what I can do with $4k a month.
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@alswearingen323 even though I don't work a normal job trading hours for dollars, the limited amount of cash congress thinks we are worth means I have to work if I want something more than the most basic.
My younger kid lived here for a while, and that alone set me back financially. I can support another person, but thats all I can do. No cars, limited travel, have to plan for months to have enough cash to buy a $1000 item.
I'm never getting married again, because when she inevitably decides she is not happy, I will be homeless and out all the cool vehicles I am building now. They like to leave right when their value is falling, and then can't figure out why nobody treats them well for long.
The adventures I have been on where both interesting and boring, lots of boredom, sometimes terror was thrown in, but always lots of work. Well except the 2001 deployment, no planes flying after 9/11 meant no work so we were stuck at Camp Doha for six weeks. Nothing to do but spend time in the gym, eat, watch movies and play games. It actually kinda sucked.
My life wasn't glamorous, as for the military job I did, nobody even knows we exist for the most part, and they'd never suspect we do anything dangerous ever if they know about us. Its only interesting if you are into logistics, airplanes, and airlift.
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I was about to cancel my Netflix and Prime, but then this showed up. This didn't affect Netflix, they are on very thin ice with me.
I'm a USAF veteran, Cold War, Gulf War and Iraq war veteran. I didn't do most things like in the show, some small bits were near to what I did and it was cool seeing C17s from my last base in this. Some of it was over the top 'Hollywood type' dramatic BS, but for the most part I enjoyed it.
Its hard to express how refreshing it was to not get inundated with 'the message' every few seconds, and it was interesting how they mixed some aspects of PTSD with his tumor. Flashbacks can be anything, fun times, benign common every day crap, or the things we try hard to forget. I enjoy some of them to be honest, and a few make me want to set up a perimeter and cut down trees in my yard for a killzone. I live alone in the woods for a reason.
We aren't dangerous to you unless you're perceived as an actual threat. If we are yelling, no worries, its when we go quiet that you should worry. (better yet, RUN) :) They did a nice job showing that too.
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@mmiddendorf Is not overboard, its how we are trained. We do not apprehend for trial, we eliminate threats. Every branch trains for that, in the jobs that might, probably, or definitely will end up doing that. My job was a 'sometimes we have to fight back' kind of job. You do not half ass it, you do not let them get away if it can be helped, because they will come back at you when they regroup.
Consider Private Ryan for a moment, a fully fabricated story to be fair, but when they take out the MG nest and that one guy survives, then they let him go, he ends up putting extra ventilation holes in the guys and Upham finally does what they should have done in the first place.
Its a different world, its not the movies, its not video games, its not fantasy. You either give them new leaks and ventilation, or they give them to you.
If you are in the way, and you are part of the enemy force, you're a lawful target in our world. Its best to not be in the way of someone like the operators who do that sort of job. Dead men tell no tales.
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